The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to automatically configuring a controller in an information handling system.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some information handling systems such as, for example, switch devices, utilize a controller coupled to a port to control high speed communications between the switch device/port and a connected device (e.g., a server device, a storage device, etc.) that is coupled to the switch device via a transceiver that is connected to the port. For example, conventional Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) controllers such as the FALCON CORE® controller available from BROADCOM® Inc. of San Jose, Calif. United States, may be manually configured (e.g., via a manual change of the controller clock speed using a Command Line Interface (CLI)) to operate in a variety of modes that control high speed communications with server devices or storage devices via an optical transceiver. In a specific example, conventional FALCON CORE controllers utilized in 100G switch device platforms may be manually configured to operate in a 100G mode that provides high speed communications via four lanes to a single port, in a 40G mode that provides high speed communications via four lanes to a single port, in a 2×50G mode that provides high speed communications via two lanes to each of a pair of ports, in a 4×25G mode that provides high speed communications via one lane to each of four ports, and in a 4×10G mode that provides high speed communications via one lane to each of four ports. However, in some situations, the mode of the controller may not match the configuration of the transceiver that is connected to the port and that couples the connected device to the switch device, and even if the mode of the controller and the configuration of the transceiver utilize the same number of lanes (e.g., one lane per port or four lanes per port in the examples above), a manual configuration of the controller is required to enable the establishment of a link between the controller and the transceiver if the controller and the transceiver are configured to operate at different speeds (e.g., 25G or 10G in the examples above), as conventional auto-negotiation techniques will not operate correctly without the establishment of a link. The need for manual configuration of the controller in such situations is a time-consuming process.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved controller configuration system.